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cybersecurity

With just a simple script and a $40 virtual phone number, a hacker could automatically break into voicemail accounts at scale, and parlay that access into control over online accounts including WhatsApp or PayPal, or even track someone’s every move.

The satellite communications that ships, planes and the military use to connect to the internet are vulnerable to hackers that, in the worst-case scenario, could carry out “cyber-physical attacks”, turning satellite antennas into weapons that operate, essentially, like microwave ovens.

The final version of an annual defense policy bill would set new authorities for the Department of Defense to deter and respond to attacks in cyberspace, including establishing the first U.S. policy on cyber warfare. Following House and Senate negotiations, a conference report on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released Monday says the United States should be able to use every option on the table, including offensive cyber capabilities.

If there is one single matter that worries tech leaders today it is the difficulty in conciliating innovation and regulation. Most companies, from tech giants to startups, are still trying to adjust to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and yet more of the same is coming. The next step will be the adoption of the EU’s ePrivacy Regulation, which will be published toward the end of 2018 or early 2019.

A new system can look at a person’s finger making a motion in the air--like a signature or drawing a shape--to authenticate their identity. The framework, called FMCode, employs algorithms fed by a wearable sensor or camera, and can correctly identify users between 94.3% to 96.7% of the time on two different gesture devices after only seeing the passcode a few times, researchers say.

The data offered a strikingly complete picture of the voting histories and political leanings of the American electorate laid out in an easily downloadable format, said cybersecurity researcher Chris Vickery. He discovered the unprotected files of 198 million voters in a routine scan of the Internet last week and alerted law enforcement officials.

Accessing the internet isn't normally a problem when you're inside the confines of your own home--it's secure, it's easy to connect to, and it's relatively uncongested--unless the whole family is streaming Netflix on five separate devices. When you venture out though, it's a different story.

To help community colleges make technology upgrades that will help them deliver cybersecurity education, the U.S. Department of Education has been allotted $1 million in an omnibus spending law, H.R. 1625, approved by Congress earlier this year.

They’re all pretty much as bad as Onavo, and some are arguably much worse. The cliché “If you aren’t paying for the product you are the product” really isn’t true these days, given how many companies now hoover your private data whether you sign up for a paying service or not, but it’s absolutely true that “free” VPNs are little more than scams.

Rachel Stickland’s two children have been the victims of data breaches -- not once, but twice. Last year, their information was stolen when the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was hacked. One month later, it happened again when the education technology platform Edmodo was penetrated. Stickland was particularly upset about the Edmodo incident because she found out about it from a news report, rather than from the company or her children’s school.

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